


all that her hands have done

by a_sinking_star



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-12 01:23:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19218769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_sinking_star/pseuds/a_sinking_star
Summary: Written for the ASOIAF Kink Meme prompt: “Catelyn sees Ned cry for the first time.” (But it somehow turned into “Four times Catelyn saw Ned cry without shedding actual tears, and one time she did so herself.”)“One of her maids tells her that the Starks are all incapable of crying—that any tears of theirs freeze inside them before they can be shed.”





	all that her hands have done

The same week that Catelyn’s engagement to Brandon Stark is first announced, one of her maids tells her and her siblings that the Starks are all incapable of crying—that any tears of theirs freeze inside them before they can be shed. Catelyn doesn’t believe her. But Lysa and Edmure do, wholeheartedly, and when Robb is born years later, Edmure seems rather disappointed that his nephew wails like any other babe.

But in her first years at Winterfell, Catelyn loses count of how many times she sees her husband make his way to and from the crypts with his face distant and impenetrable. Having stumbled upon him at prayer once or twice over the course of her marriage, she knows it is the same expression he wears when he prays in the godswood for the souls of his lost family, and sometimes she wonders if her maid had the truth of it. Perhaps his grief has hardened and turned cold inside him, somewhere too deep for her to ever reach.

But she is beginning to realize that he is, in fact, capable of human expression—and moreover, that she is capable of startling it out of him. She can make him smile with a private quip about a visiting lord’s ill-mannered behaviour; she can make his eyes darken with desire just by unpinning her hair and combing it out while he watches; she can even coax a laugh from him on occasion with stories about Robb’s antics. And surely all that is worth something.

…

The first time her husband spends a full night in her bed, she is carrying her second child, four moons along and just beginning to show. She feels as though her heart has swelled to make room for the new babe, and in the process somehow grown enough to include Ned, too. So one night, when they have finished, she simply curls up against him with her head on his chest and pretends to fall asleep, purely to see what he will do. He hesitates—she imagines him considering whether he can extricate himself without waking her—but in the end he puts his arm around her shoulder and falls asleep long before she does.

The next time, a mere three days later, she does not have to pretend.

The third time, she wakes in the middle of the night to the sound of ragged, panicked breathing. At first it sounds to her like a frightened animal; somehow, it unsettles her even more to realize that the sound comes from Ned in the throes of a nightmare. She has no idea if she should wake him, so she settles for stroking his hair and breathing _hush now, my love, hush_ in his ear. _My love, my love_ —she would never say such a thing to him when is awake. Where is he now? In the Mad King’s court where his father burns? Searching for his sister, waiting for his brother, dancing with his bastard’s mother? She pushes that thought aside.

The room grows colder—the fire has gone out and the window is not latched properly, but she does not want to leave him long enough to remedy either situation. And in any case, he wakes soon enough, disoriented and blinking at the ceiling. The thought that he has spent many such restless nights alone in his own bed makes her heart ache for him.

“Ned?” she says, tentative. When he buries his face against her chest, she can feel the dampness of his breath but not the wetness of tears against her skin as he cries.

She holds him quietly until he falls asleep again, and the next morning she does not say a word. He will speak to her of it of his own accord if he ever wishes to, she reasons. He never does. But from then on, as long as he is home with her, he sleeps beside her every night. Soon enough the maids take note and stop changing the linens in his chambers altogether. Catelyn grows used to waking before he does and waiting for his dreams to run their course. She has always been good at waiting.

…

The day Ned returns from the war against Balon Greyjoy, he meets his newborn daughter, sees his new ward into Catelyn’s hands, and spends near to four hours in his solar with Catelyn, Ser Rodrik, and Vayon Poole, trading news and making plans for the returning army, the household, and the North itself. Catelyn tries to convince him that he should rest first and discuss food stores on the morrow, but she is too relieved at having him home to truly press the issue. She has never felt as foreign and uncertain as she did while he was away and she sat upon his lord’s chair, trying to decide as he would have. So although she cannot admit it, she wants his approval and is glad she will not have to wait for it.

In truth, the past moons have been peaceful at Winterfell, even as war raged to the southwest, and Catelyn knows she has likely lost more sleep than was necessary over the minor matters that did arise. But Ned seems inordinately pleased with the work she has done. When the four of them have closed their discussion, he takes her arm, walks her down to the Great Hall for the evening meal. In the stairwell, he pauses to kiss the crown of her head and tell her she has done well.

“You are a Stark in truth, my lady,” he says. And then, with a rare, teasing smile: “My she-wolf.”

Suddenly, she wants to weep. She tries to stopper the tears inside her, and although she manages for the duration of the feast, she knows that will only last until they are alone.

She does, in fact, cry that night, proving him wrong. When she has calmed herself, he kisses the tears from her eyelashes, strokes his thumbs over her cheekbones. The expression on his face is so unbearably tender that she has to look away.

…

Early one morning, she goes to seek Ned in his solar and finds him not at his desk but at the window, open to the sharp, clear air and the sounds of their household in motion. Joining him there, she sees her eldest son and youngest daughter playing with their half-brother in the courtyard below: Arya is seated on the boy’s shoulders, nearly shrieking with laughter as she stretches her fingertips up towards the sky, revelling in her newfound height. Robb, watching them, is laughing too.

She is about to call out to Arya to _get down from there this instant before you hurt yourself_ , when she catches sight of Ned’s expression and finds herself unable to speak at all. His face looks as though it has been turned to stone and is now beginning to crack along some hidden fault line.

“I used to carry Lyanna like that, when she was small,” he says quietly. “She used to beg Brandon and me until one of us gave in.”

Every visiting Northern lord old enough to remember Lyanna has told Catelyn how much Arya resembles her aunt, and the gods know Catelyn is unlikely to forget how much that solemn, dark-haired bastard resembles his father. For a moment, she tries to see the scene below as he does—as a slightly distorted glimpse into days gone by. He has never said Lyanna’s name out loud to her before.

Somehow, Arya reminds Catelyn more of herself than any of her red-haired, blue-eyed children do—the bravest and most stubborn of her babes, who insisted her mother teach her to ride and to swim almost as soon as she could speak. At six Arya may well be a better horsewoman and a better archer than her brothers, and the gods only know where she learned to handle a bow, for Catelyn most certainly did not teach her. Ned often says that Arya has the wolfblood in her, and even as Catelyn agrees, she thinks of herself at that age, of her uncle dragging her from Riverrun’s raging waters with his face gone white with fear. She has spent many mornings praying that Arya will come to a happier end than her aunt did, but that she will not have to grow up quite so quickly as her mother, either.

Ned’s fears, she thinks just then, must be that much more acute.

She takes him in her arms as best she can despite standing half a head shorter than he does. He bows his head, resting his brow against her hair, and if he were any other man he would be weeping. Catelyn realizes then what she should have known along—if his eyes stay dry, it does not matter, for it does not mean his sorrow runs any less deep than hers.

…

When the news of his death reaches her, she walks calmly to the privacy of her tent, where she falls to her knees, wheezing and clawing at her throat and struggling to breathe. Then a sob tears its way out of her—a dry, hoarse cry she did not know she was capable of making. But the tears do not come, and she fears they never will. _You are a Stark in truth, my lady,_ Ned once told her. _My she-wolf._ She is starting to believe him.


End file.
